Overthinking lowers your performance - Deepstash
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Overthinking lowers your performance

Our working memory is what allows us to focus on the information we need to get things done at the moment we’re doing them. It is also in limited supply. You can think of it like our brain’s computer memory. Once it’s used up, nothing more can fit in.

When you overanalyze a situation, the repetitive thoughts, anxiety, and self-doubt decrease the amount of working memory you have available to complete challenging tasks, causing your productivity to plummet.

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MORE IDEAS ON THIS

Make your decision the right one

It’s tempting to believe that the best decision exists and we can figure out what it is by just researching deeper and thinking harder. The truth is that the options in front of you may be equally valid. 

It’s often our confidence in and commitment to our decisions that dete...

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Know your main objective

Identifying and staying true to one main objective as the basis for decision-making helps you overcome a tendency to overthink.

What’s the most important thing for you personally and professionally? Write it down and find a way to rem...

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Talk it out with someone else

The next time you catch yourself thinking over a particular issue, again and again, schedule a meeting with a coworker, supervisor, mentor, or friend. Having to present your deliberations to someone else forces you to synthesize the information you’ve been collecting in a clear, concise wa...

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Paradox of Choice

Paradox of Choice

It means that while increased choice allows us to achieve objectively better results, it also leads to greater anxiety, indecision, paralysis, and dissatisfaction.

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Overthinking kills your creativity

A recent Stanford study suggests that over-thinking not only impedes our ability to perform cognitive tasks but keeps us from reaching our creative potential as well.

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Set a deadline

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the amount of time you’ve allotted it. Setting a time constraint can force you to make a decision more efficiently.

Find a way to hold yourself accountable for your deadlines. Make your deadline as public as possible. 

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Limit the amount of information

Efficiently manage information by determining what you want to learn from it first, then reading for that specific thing.

Another way to consume information is to determine the number of resources you’ll use first.  Limit yourself to only those resources.

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An iterative mindset

This concept is most associated with software development, particularly at fast-moving start-ups with few resources:

  • Instead of trying to release a perfect version of a product that may or may not fit customers’ needs, focus on producing a “minimum viable product”

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Overthinking eats up your willpower

You can think of willpower as a muscle. The more you use it, the more it wears out, leaving you feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. 

When we agonize over a decision, we deplete our limited supply of willpower much more quickly, causing us to feel exhausted and overwhelmed...

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Start before you feel ready

Collecting and analyzing more and more information is a tempting way to try and overcome the uncertainty that comes with taking on big goals. In the end, action is what decides our ultimate success or failure. 

So the next time you’re stuck in analysis mode, remember that successful peop...

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Overthinking makes you less happy

Though analyzing every last option in the quest for the best choice may lead to an objectively better outcome in some situations, research suggests that this ultimately leads to more anxiety and re...

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Structure your day

Because our ability to make quality, long-term decisions deteriorates with each additional choice we make, big or small, successful people tackle their most important task first thing in the morning when their willpower reserves are at their fullest and try to make small decis...

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CURATED FROM

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nicij

The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.

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Overthinking eats up your willpower

You can think of willpower as a muscle. The more you use it, the more it wears out, leaving you feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. 

When we agonize over a decision, we deplete our limited supply of willpower much more quickly, causing us to feel exhausted and overwhelmed...

Our Working Memory

Our Working Memory

The limited amount of load we can take on our working memory, which functions like computer RAM, is called the cognitive load.

Miller's Law states that we need to limit our cognitive loads and hold on to approximately seven number of objects at a given time.

Overloading the working memory capacity

Your working memory capacity can be overloaded in three ways, making you feel mentally drained:

  • New routines can prevent you from the ability to do things on auto-pilot and will instead draw on your limited working memory capacity.
  • Anxiety a...

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